Batman v Superman writer compares the film to The Empire Strikes Back
Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is nearly upon us, and with it comes loads of wonderful new interviews with the filmmakers. One such interview was with one of the film’s writers, Chris Terrio; speaking with The Wall Street Journal, he compared the movie to some heavy-hitters in the world of sequels.
‘Batman v Superman is a bit of an Empire Strikes Back or Two Towers or any similar middle film in a trilogy,’ Terrio says. ‘The middle film tends to be the darkest one. I do think from Man of Steel through Justice League, it is one saga really.’ There are two things to note here: firstly, those huge comparisons to both The Empire Strikes Back and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers aren’t to do with quality (but hey, we could be surprised), but rather in terms of tone. Secondly, Terrio describes Batman v Superman as part of a trilogy, which leaves us confused: last time we checked, Justice League would be split into a couple of movies, Part One and Part Two. Perhaps he meant ‘trilogy’ in a loose sense (meaning not at all).
‘I expect Justice League will be tonally not quite as dark as Batman v Superman,’ continues Terrio. ‘From that point of view, I felt compelled to go back and try to lift us and myself into a different tonal place because I think when you write a darker film, sometimes you want to redeem it all a bit.’ So when Justice League – Part One eventually comes out in November 2017, should we expect something as colourful and funny as The Avengers?
He also had this extremely interesting thing to say about the fundamental duality of Batman and Superman: ‘I began to think Batman and Superman occupy different parts of the mythic imagination. In superhero stories, Batman is Pluto, god of the underworld, and Superman is Apollo, god of the sky. That began to be really interesting to me — that their conflict is not just due to manipulation, but their very existence. In the end, there’s a common humanity which I think is discovered at a certain moment in the film.’
Should we start to get excited? Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is released March 25.